this road will end when we reach the sky
by Travithian Axile
Summary: 7.01 AU. Jimmy deals with loss, a voice in his head and Dean Winchester. At least he's used to the first two. Slight Dean/Jimmy and Dean/Castiel.


**Title: **this road will end when we reach the sky  
><strong>CharactersPairings: **Slight Dean/Jimmy, slight Dean/Castiel, Sam, Bobby  
><strong>Rating: <strong>PG-13  
><strong>Summary: <strong>7.01 AU. Jimmy deals with loss, a voice in his head and Dean Winchester. At least he's used to the first two.  
><strong>Word Count: <strong>6,228  
><strong>Notes:<strong> Written for obstinatrix and Round 2 of Novakfest. I chose prompt 5: _Jimmy travelling with the Winchesters!gen of any kind. Or threesome. Er._

Thanks to skylar_matthews for betaing =)

* * *

><p><em>We lost the skyline<em>  
><em>We stepped right off the map<em>  
><em>Drifted into blank space<em>  
><em>And let the clocks relapse<em>

_We laughed the rain down  
><em>_Slow burn on the lawn  
><em>_Ghosts across the downtown  
><em>_Swallowed up the storm_

_Sometimes I, I feel like a fist  
><em>_Sometimes I am the color of air  
><em>_Sometimes it's only afterwards  
><em>_I find I'm not there_

- Porcupine Tree, "The Sky Moves Sideways"

* * *

><p><em>Jimmy Novak?<em>

Jimmy opens his eyes. Ahead, the brothers are murmuring quietly to each other, unaware that he is awake but not really listening, to names, dates, places; a long litany of the dead. The road rolls silently on under their feet.

The voice of a ghost continues to whisper into his ear. Jimmy closes his eyes again, shutting it out to chase the fading shreds of sleep.

He does not dream; he no longer dreams anymore.

* * *

><p>Jimmy stays with the Winchesters, lets them drive him around in their beat-up old car from one creature feature to another. It's familiar, almost like the natural order of things, to give up control and flutter along like a leaf at the whim of the wind. When he leans his head against the window, cold with the air rushing away outside, and listens to the rumbling hum of the engine, the radio that is always crackling out music intertwined with Dean's inharmonious humming he can almost pretend – it is almost the same.<p>

Sometimes it feels like all Jimmy has to do is look over his shoulder for the past to catch up, to pounce and devour him. The scent of guilt is on him and the beast is on the hunt, in the quiet moments, the darkness in his head like a fractured mirror for the memories that haunt him, with what could have been, with the other paths he could have walked.

(_You are not alone, _the wind tells him in a sad, empty sigh.)

Jimmy wonders if it is the same for the Winchesters, if Dean sees the bloody room in the rearview mirror, if his fists still sting with the pain. He knows Sam sees Hell through the cracks in his head, bleeding from a wound that might never heal. Sam checks the corners of every new room he enters, the shadows behind the furniture, in case the Devil is there waiting for him.

They never discuss it, not outright, not without allusion and evasion, the ongoing dance of avoidance around the site of hurt. Just another rule in the unspoken agreement that keeps them together, the long list of taboos: don't ask stupid questions. Especially stupid questions about the past.

Especially the part with _him _in it.

Jimmy counts the towns they drive through. He counts the lives saved, and wonders how many more will pass before the spaces between past and present and future grow wide enough for them all to stop, just once, to breathe and look behind without fear.

* * *

><p>The bandages around Dean's hands match the ones on Sam's. They stand starkly out against the dark cuffs of his jacket as he lifts the glass and drinks, amber liquid disappearing down the long line of his throat in one swallow.<p>

It is only eight in the morning. Jimmy lingers against the doorframe, considering his choices. If there is an obvious one it does not stand out to him. Jimmy has grown too used to not being responsible; to have a hand in his, always, guiding him around the obstacles in his path, a fragile mortal swaddled in an angel's grace.

_Castiel?_ Instinct takes over, the flexing of a well-used muscle. Once, he had lashed his destiny to another, like a captain to his ship through hell or high waters. Jimmy can barely remember what it was like to own nothing but himself.

Silence; Castiel – or the voice in his head that _thinks_ it is Castiel – does not always reply, and when it does, it rarely answers any of the questions Jimmy has.

Jimmy feels a flash of anger; at Castiel, at his own learned helplessness. He makes up his mind. Uncaring of the consequences, he strides forward, fighting the ingrained flinch pulling his spine into a fetal curve. _Danger, _his instincts scream. _Pain. _He ignores them, pulling the glass from Dean's grasp in one hard fast motion and flinging it to the floor where it smashes with a ringing sound that vibrates uncomfortably in his bones.

"What the _hell_?" Dean rises, wild-eyed and unkempt, Jimmy becoming more conscious with every passing second of the discrepancy in their heights and builds. "What d'you think you're _doing_?"

Jimmy does not say, _saving your self-pitying ass from yourself, _though he is sorely tempted to. That job belonged to Castiel, a sense of responsibility buried deep like the roots of an ancient tree, pushing him always towards Dean, to _fix _him, make him better, the way he had raised the broken pieces of Dean's soul and put it back together. Jimmy would tear the urge out of himself if he can and his heart along with it, but he cannot deny the existence of the compulsion, much less the compulsion itself.

Instead he says what he knows will get through the alcoholic haze, capture Dean's attention: "I've been hearing his voice."

Dean freezes, his only movements the minute jerks of his eyes, as though he is watching for the tremor of Jimmy's muscles, the signs of a liar. Little by little he relaxes, uncoiling himself from the tense stance of the shell-shocked. "And my brother has got his brain on Hell and the Devil. There's no shortage of crazy around here." He makes a sound of disgust and flicks a longing gaze towards the bottle on the table, still half full. "Anything else? Anything _important, _that is?"

"That's it?" Jimmy can't keep the disbelief from his voice. "Is that all you have to say to me?" _To Castiel?_

Dean sneers at him. "Tell me, just what is _Cass_ saying?" He sits down again, takes a long pull straight from the bottle before thumping it down for emphasis. "Are there precise directions? A big red X on a map, along the lines of _here there be a way to rescue a dumbass angel who should have known better?_ Something, you know, actually _concrete?_"

_I'm so sorry, Dean…_

Jimmy's anger gutters out, a mere candle flame in the wind. "No," he has to admit. "Nothing like that."

"Thought so," Dean mutters, already turning away. "If there was, you wouldn't have been shuffling around bug-eyed over there for the last ten minutes. All of us, we all..." He stops himself from going any further, for which Jimmy is sincerely, abruptly grateful; there are depths of pain which cannot, which should never be articulated, brought out into the harsh light of day where they cannot scab over and be forgotten. "Damn it," he says, half to himself. "I can't deal with this."

Jimmy tries again. "I thought…you would want to know…he was your _friend_."

_I used to be, _Castiel says, sadly. _But no longer…_

Dean picks up the bottle and sloshes the liquid inside around. "See this?" he says, pointing. "It's called _al-co-hol._ People drink this to forget about bad shit in their lives." He squints up at Jimmy, Castiel's reflection in the wide, disturbingly clear mirror of his eyes and for a moment his carefully careless expression splinters along the old lines of anguish, leaving him open and vulnerable, more terrifying than he had been when he was angry. "So just. Stop. _Talking_."

"Cass – "

Dean slams his hand on the table, and Jimmy scrambles back, the shadows of old agony flaring along his nerves at the sudden sound. _Stop, don't hurt me. Stop. _He forces his arms down where they have half-risen to cover his head and shoves his shaking hands into his pockets, while the possibly imaginary voice in his head murmurs soothingly. Dean doesn't seem to notice; his gaze is steady, cold hatred where there had been heat, passion, loss.

"Say his name and I'll fucking kill you," Dean says, and one glance at him tells Jimmy that it's a promise.

Jimmy leaves Dean to his self-destruction, but in the evening he comes again, just to check over his comatose body – and if he reaches out and smoothes down damp hair in a touch Dean will never know about, he tells himself it is simply the remains of the angel in him, a craving for contact from beyond the grave.

* * *

><p>"So…" Sam says, awkwardly. "I overheard what you said to Dean in the kitchen the other day."<p>

It is entirely possible that people living on the other side of the state had overheard that conversation. "I know – I shouldn't have done that," Jimmy says, hoping to bypass this as quickly as possible.

"No – I wanted to say, I appreciate what you did." Sam looks guilty, now, darting his eyes around as though he might discover Dean lurking under the windowsill. "Dean has a problem, I know it, you know it, _he _knows it but hellhounds can't drag that out of him." He swallows. "And, as you're aware, I'm not exactly in the best state to handle him right now."

Jimmy stares, refusing to be guilted into this. "I'm not – I'm not _him. _Dean made that pretty clear."

"I know." Sam flashes a small, sad smile. "I'm not asking you to be. Dean just needs all the friends he can…friends who actually have their heads all together."

"And you think I do?" Jimmy cannot resist the incredulous laugh that slips out at this one.

Sam simply shrugs. "Insanity is relative," he says, tapping his own head, and Jimmy is inclined to agree with him.

* * *

><p>Bobby does not quite chase them out of his house with a pickaxe, but it gets close, once he starts dropping heavy-handed hints before finally straight-out handing Dean a newspaper clipping about the body count a couple towns over.<p>

"Sucked dry like they were damned Capri Suns," Bobby says, practically pushing the Winchesters out the door into the Impala. As much as he obviously loves them there is only so far as his tolerance for Dean's depression and Hell-fueled nightmares extends. "You boys know what to do."

Dean flips Bobby a salute, sliding easily behind the wheel of the Impala. "Vamp 101 – chop the sucker's head off. Yeah, we aren't that far gone yet, Bobby." Despite his words, he is clearly eager to be off – there is a level of brightness and clarity to his eyes that has not been there for some time – ever since that time.

Jimmy surprises them all by saying: "Can I come along?"

Bobby slants a narrow-eyed stare at him, with an expression his own father might have worn: _just what are you up to? _"_You're_ welcome to stay, boy," he says, with an air of making a big concession. "You ain't as much trouble as those two numbskulls over there."

The temptation to accept the offer and hide indoors comes and goes. Jimmy wants to get out of here, this strange familiar place where Castiel spent so much of his time, talking, reading, and once, even sleeping. He wants to walk somewhere he can touch the walls without peeling away some old dead memory or turn a corner without confronting a ghost.

Bobby lets him go, reluctantly and with a warning to take care. He slots himself into the backseat as naturally as breathing and doesn't miss the glance that travels from Dean to Sam and back again, the sharp sting of nostalgia like a thin thread between the three of them as they are and the three of them as they were, less scarred, less broken, in a very different time.

The _four _of them, Jimmy wants to say. _I was always here. You just never saw me._

But he opts to keep the peace on their first trip together. He can tell the Winchesters want this to work out, a sort of proof that not everything has changed, that in their chosen profession at least, in which they take a peculiar pride, they still have some control.

"Don't get in our way," Dean orders, clearly unhappy to be saddled with a civilian to babysit. There is a tension in the air between them that has yet to dissipate, and not just because of the incident – Dean still cannot forgive him for wearing the face of his best friend. "If you _have_ to go out, take along a weapon. Remember, there're vamps out there jonesing for a fix, so if anyone tries to, say, chat you up, or – "

"He's an adult, for God's sake, Dean," Sam mutters, a pointed edge to his words. "He can take care of himself."

Dean glowers a little, very visibly bites back a retort, and spends the rest of the trip hunched over the wheel.

* * *

><p>Despite the hostile start, everything does go smoothly. Dean and Sam head out in their Fed suits, Jimmy goes for a walk – his first in his new life. Today is a day of firsts; coffee at a café, skimming the (far too many) books he had missed. He is almost ordinary, he is just another face in the brisk lunch crowd.<p>

The thought strikes him then, lightning from a clear sky: _why not?_

She is alive. Both of them are. He can find them, if he wishes, with the Winchesters' help, if they will have him back –

_You can be happy again. _

A promise, as if in penance; a turning back of the clock, the dream offered to him on a silver platter –

Suddenly the world is too big, too loud – too many curious glances his way as he pushes his way out the store and somehow stumbles back to the comforting confines of the motel, dogged all the way by dread and the leaden weight of Dean's knife in his coat. Someone is speaking quietly next door; he presses his ear to the wall and listens to the murmur of conversation in the next room, its cadences, the swell and lull in volume, trying to recall what it was like to slip so easily into mundanity, drop a smile to a stranger without searching for the color of his eyes without the talismans of silver and holy water and spells in hand, to carry in his heart the warm certainty of home at the end of the day and a family behind the door – what it was like to be normal.

Jimmy sinks to the floor, pressing his cheek against the cheap wallpaper. He feels numb; but then he has known for some time now that he is both less and more than what he used to be, as though in the final separation there had been a mistake, bits and pieces taken or left behind in uneven trade. Sometimes a strange language will rise to the tip of his tongue, cold and heavy with the hum of latent power but even it cannot grant him the ability to speak to his daughter, to banish the lost years in a few magical phrases.

Everything is complicated. Everything used to be simple – yes or no, Heaven or Hell_ – _but that choice has been lost to him.

He has just enough time to regain control of himself before Dean and Sam return, obviously pleased with themselves – pleased enough to unbend and include him in the conversation while they poke pins into a map and lays out their machetes. Sam asks him about his day. Jimmy tells him, _sans _nervous breakdown.

Dean breaks in with a grunt, not looking up from the vial of dead man's blood he is preparing. "So…welcome back to the real world, huh? Beats what happened the last time."

"I'm better now," Jimmy says softly, and hopes fervently that it is true.

Dean finally does meet his gaze, though he might as well not have bothered – his expression is fixedly neutral and blatantly false. "Better enough to go home?"

Jimmy drops his eyes, burying the shock that runs through him, sharp and silver, in the digging of stiff fingers into his thigh. "…No. Not yet," he says, afraid to look up, to meet his own rising guilt with the condemnation he knows must be there.

"It's okay," Sam says – and now it's _his _turn to sound carefully blank. "Stay as long as you need. There's always space in the back."

_For the both of us._

* * *

><p>Jimmy waits, and waits some more with a resignation bordering on terror, but Dean does not ask him again.<p>

* * *

><p>Another hunt, another motel. Dean's and Sam's backpacks have migrated from Bobby's living room to the boot; this time, they won't be going back, moorings cut to drift out with the tide of monster sightings, the trail of mysterious deaths. Somehow, Jimmy is still here like the answer to the old riddle <em>what doesn't belong?<em> He almost expects Castiel to descend upon him at any moment to complete the picture, soothe the ever present itch between his soul and his body like that of an ill-fitting suit.

Sam comes back early, minus Dean and plus an irritated expression. "Dean needs some time off," he says vaguely. Jimmy hears the unspoken _from me, and vice versa _tacked on after that. He says nothing; if anything, the blow-up with Dean has convinced him to stay out of the Winchesters' personal drama. He is not their friend, even if Sam and Castiel would like all three of them to be best buddies. More to the point, they aren't his. Jimmy might have been the true vessel of an angel but he is not any less human than the next person in line when it comes to holding a grudge.

_There's no getting out and there's no going home. _In light of past events, Sam's words resound within him with the weight of prophecy. Discontent roils within him, phantom sensations from a long-severed limb that refuses to get the message. _You're gone. Leave me alone. _Jimmy can't ever be normal as long as this sliver of Castiel stays burrowed inside him, this longing that clings like poisonous ivy to the walls of his mind.

_I promised to always be with you._

_Yeah? You lied._

_Not to you. _Castiel's voice sharpens with a new note of urgency. _I never meant to lie to any of you…_

That is when the screaming starts, and something in the bathroom shatters. "Sam?" Jimmy calls out in alarm, already running to the closed door. Either the monster they are hunting has found them or Lucifer has dropped by for his usual visit. Neither option is good. Still, as Jimmy swings the thankfully unlocked door open, he cannot help but hope, for Sam's sake…

What he finds on the other side makes him wince his eyes shut, from one messed-up thing to another – Sam flattened against the far end, staring at him with a naked terror, a trail of bloody prints showing his fumbling passage across the off-white tiles. Red-tinged shards lie in between him and the door where the mirror had been flung in fear-fueled force.

"He was in the mirror," Sam tells him, shushed like it's a secret. "I had to do it."

Jimmy does not have to ask who. He hesitates, torn between concern and trepidation over touching Sam when he is like this, whipped by the memory of Hell into something more a wild animal than human. The phone with Dean's number in it is lying on the table beside the bed. He takes a step back.

The choice is made for him when Sam lunges violently forward and Jimmy is forced to catch him to prevent him from falling and cutting himself again. Glass crunches under their shoes as they struggle to keep their balance. "Don't go," Sam pants into Jimmy's hair. Every muscle in his body is vibrating, wound up tighter than a spring. "Please, don't go."

"I'm not going anywhere," Jimmy says, trying to keep a rising whine of panic out of his voice. Sam is physically imposing at the best of times, but now he is looming over Jimmy and his hands are holding on too tight and oh god the sharp metallic tang of blood pricking the air. This body was broken once, it remembers, the scars were healed except where they cannot be seen, buried deep like fossils in the earth. He tugs futilely against Sam's iron grip, already breathing too fast, his heart banging against his ribs. "Let _go, _let go, I just want to get you some help – "

"You left us down here!" Sam screams in his face, his eyes wild. "Cass, you _left _us down there with _him!"_

He sobs once, before his arms fall away and he sags like a puppet with its strings cut. Jimmy catches him, letting the wall take most of his weight so he slides down to the floor. "I didn't mean to," his mouth says – whether because Jimmy is really haunted by Castiel's ghost, or because it is the right thing to say, isn't really important right now. "I'm sorry. I'm here now."

Sam curls up against him, as hot as Jimmy is cold. He stays still when Jimmy examines the cuts in his palms, both the old and the new. "You're not leaving," he says, more a statement than a question, as Jimmy grabs the towel from the rack and lets it soak up the blood – the least Jimmy can do until Dean returns.

"Never." _Liar, liar. _"You're safe from him now, okay? I'm here with you." The motions of comfort have become foreign to Jimmy, like a useless custom learned in another country. But he tries, he presses the heel of his palm against Sam's forehead and strokes his hand through the matted hair, murmuring nonsense words, following the instructions of a manual he thought he had forgotten – Claire after a nightmare, Amelia after the sudden death of her mother. For once the memories come without pain of guilt attached to them, simply an emerging map for his hands and words to follow, those old paths that will never change. Sam's trembling slows, the patterns of his contorted limbs relax into something more natural, human.

(His fingers on Sam's forehead, burning and prodding. The wall just needs one push before it falls down and – how does the song go? All Hell breaks loose.)

This feels, all too suddenly, like atonement. Making amends for an unforgiveable crime. Jimmy was not responsible, but his hands have blood on them and now he cannot stop even if he wants. He holds onto Sam like a lifeline, tracing circles around the steady beat of his pulse with his thumb. "You're going to be okay," he says, choking up. Dear God, he's crying, a terrible wretched regret squeezing tight around him like a fist, Castiel's regret and his, intertwined as though they are one again. "You're going to be – "

"Sammy!" The door bangs open, Dean's heavy steps pounding the carpet in agitation. "Sammy, damnit, if you're not here I'm gonna hog-tie you to the bed until we get back to Bobby's –"

He rounds the corner, takes in the scene – the shattered mirror, Sam burying his face in Jimmy's shoulder, saying Castiel's name over and over again. His face flickers from one expression to another too fast for Jimmy to decipher until it settles on a cold, frightening blankness, his hands curling into fists at his side.

For a split second Jimmy thinks Dean might actually go through with his threat to murder whoever dares utter Castiel's name in his presence and he tenses. Then Dean is coming forward, saying, "Sammy?' in a quiet brittle voice, emotion shivering from beneath like water under ice and Sam's face is lifting towards him, a flower towards the sun drinking in the sight of his brother. Then somehow all three of them are embracing, rough and messy, Dean holding on like he will never let go.

* * *

><p>"Jimmy?"<p>

"Yes?"

Pause. "Yeah, well. About…you know. Thanks."

"You're welcome."

And Jimmy means it.

He has been thinking, how it isn't fair. This face, this body will always be a memorial to Castiel, the lives he touched, the good and the bad. It shouldn't be forgotten. Even the feelings he has for Dean and Sam… It is Castiel lingering like a snatch of song , an echo of prayer in an old abandoned church, it is the remains of an emotion so strong that even death or oblivion or whatever fate has befallen Castiel cannot destroy it. It is what angels are supposed to be.

_And the greatest of these is love…_

Dean and Sam will always see Castiel in him, his fingerprints in Jimmy's soul and the clay of his heart; the physical grave that Castiel will never have. Jimmy cannot deny them that. He cannot deny himself, looking into a mirror at the scars on their face, asking silently: _Where are you? Are you even alive? Or did you die long ago, and I didn't know?_

_I'm sorry, _the ghost says, nothing more. _I'm sorry._

Jimmy stares into the blueness of his eyes, and finds nothing and no one but himself, looking back.

* * *

><p>The only real endorsement Dean makes of Jimmy's permanent status as backseat tagalong is when he starts seriously teaching Jimmy how to use the arsenal in the Impala's boot. It happens when they pull into a small town in the middle of nowhere and Jimmy trails along obediently in their wake as always until Dean turns around and shoves something into his grasp. Jimmy takes whatever is offered automatically, but he comes to a stop when he realizes it's a gun. His fingers twitch open before Dean shoves it back in determination.<p>

"Listen," Dean says, in a tone that indicates he is not going to tolerate any dissent. "If you're gonna hang around with a couple of hunters long-term, you're gonna need to learn how to defend yourself."

"But – "

Dean just stares at him until Jimmy comes to the realization that this is actually the closest Dean ever gets to something resembling an apology. "…Thank you?"

It isn't as bad as expected. Mostly because the target is a brightly-painted piece of paper and also because once Jimmy has managed to ease the tension out of his muscles he can hit the rough vicinity of the bull's-eye at least, and spot-on once or twice even when Dean starts handing him larger calibers.

"Huh," Dean says, grudgingly impressed. "Must be because –" He leans close and taps Jimmy on the forehead. " – you still remember. Somewhere in here."

Jimmy is about to say he had never so much as touched a .22 back in his old life when it occurs to him what Dean really means. "Why would he… " He pauses over the emerging question, unsure if the threat made back in Bobby's kitchen still stands or if this is – permission, of sorts, an invitation into previously forbidden territory.

Dean's approving smile grows forced, and there is a beat of silence when he looks up and away, focusing on a random cloud in the sky. One shoulder rises in a seemingly casual shrug. "It was useful at the time."

Dean does not elaborate, and Jimmy does not ask. The old distance fills the air between them as they walk back to their room, a shadow cast from half-tangible yearnings, sorrows. Jimmy wonders how it went, if Dean had stood behind Castiel as well, steadying shaky hands, his breath warming the back of his neck. If Castiel had scored on the first try, natural-born warrior that he was, and if Dean had clapped him on the shoulder in shared victory –

Jimmy has difficulty sorting between fantasy and memory, at times. Both are too real to him. As Dean opens the door and gestures politely, and Jimmy brushes past, he cannot help but imagine the heat of Dean's broad palm sliding down his shoulder, bleeding into him, erasing the emptiness that clings always like cobwebs to his bones.

_Dean Winchester, _Castiel murmurs wistfully from somewhere deep within, in between the sudden erratic skips of his heart. Jimmy freezes; he would have been blind and an idiot not to know what Dean meant to Castiel, but he can never get used to this…desperation to let go, to lose himself in the vast shadow of another being. _Dean, have you forgiven me? _

"Jimmy?" Dean approaches, concerned and absolutely the last thing that Jimmy needs. He has never told Dean about this; he will never tell him. It is too close, too personal; too much like a weapon that can be turned to maim with the slightest mishandling, a word or gesture out of place. _Oh, and by the way, Castiel was in love with you. _Putting this in words, simply hearing them in the safety of his head still make it real enough to twist Jimmy's stomach in slow, painful knots.

"I'm all right," he croaks in response, backing away as discreetly as possible. "Just – tired."

It is the least convincing excuse in the book, and it does not deter Dean. Jimmy is glad when Sam pops up from the floor to declare that his research is done, drawing Dean into an intense discussion of how and when they intend to kill their latest monster.

"Hey." Jimmy stops, glancing back. Dean waves his hand at him, worry still not completely gone from the tense line of his brow. "Today was okay with you, wasn't it?"

Jimmy frowns. "It was fine."

"Good." Dean smirks, as though just minutes ago his mask had not slipped, betrayed the wounds still scarring underneath. "Because this? It's just the beginning." He nudges Sam, who looks slightly disapproving but rather more amused. "Sam here can tell you - you're about to get the instruction of a master."

Sam rolls his eyes, but fondly. "Whatever. Just don't get confused with stabbing time tomorrow."

Jimmy leaves them to it, shutting the bathroom door and leaning against it. He stares at his hands, recalling the sure weight of the guns in them, the recoil as the bullet is spat out. Most of all, though he tries not to, he recalls Dean standing at his back, strong and steady as a rock, the glimpse of his smile out of the corner of the eye like a reward whenever he thinks Jimmy is shooting well.

…He feels like he has taken a step. He is not sure whether it is forward or backward, just that he is standing somewhere else from where he had started. And it is good.

The next time, he volunteers. And the next, Dean teaches him how to pack salt into shotgun shells.

* * *

><p>Jimmy keeps his first ghost at bay with Dean a week later while Sam lights the bones. Another step, and Jimmy has no idea where he is going, how this is ending. But when Dean slaps him on the back and treats him to a drink that Jimmy chokes on and it is like after a lifetime of grasping and searching it is in his grip, that sense of destiny and himself he had lost. As though something in him had passed a hurdle, crossed a chasm and tipped and fallen he feels – he feels the world settle solidly around him, the ground unmoving and waiting under his feet. He breathes in, out, and Castiel stays silent in his head.<p>

* * *

><p>Twenty-three towns and they are in a gas station waiting for the Impala to fill up, sate her thirsty engine so they can loose her on the road once again.<p>

"How's your taste in music, Jimmy?" Dean asks casually, his arms draped on the roof alongside Jimmy's. The metal is still warm from the sun, and combined with the smell of oil and leather, the falling darkness, Jimmy is feeling more than a little sleepy. He blinks as Dean grins and goes on, "Never hear you singing along with us."

In Jimmy's opinion, two out-of-tune voices are more than a sufficient assault on his senses. "Classical, I suppose," he says after a moment of kicking his brain into gear. The only songs he is familiar with were the hymns he had sung in church and the so-called music that Dean insists on running on the radio, though by now it is more than a feature than a bug of life with the Winchesters. He shrugs at the look of horror on Dean's face, secretly amused, and adds as an explanation, "Strict parents."

"Okay," Dean says, holding up a hand, "That is going to have to change."

Jimmy narrows his eyes. "What's wrong with my music?"

"Everything if you ever want a chance with this baby." Dean smiles fondly and runs a hand over the Impala's gleaming surface with a gentleness he rarely shows, even to the women he picks up at the bar. "Driver picks the music, or don'tcha know? But it has to be music she likes."

"You're always the one driving," Jimmy points out.

"Not _always._" Dean does not look at him, still gazing with loving eyes at his car. If it ever grows legs and a brain they would probably get married. "Sometimes, if Sammy's good…or if you ever update your music to something around this century…" Dean's eyes cut over, meaningfully, and there is a moment when Jimmy meets his gaze and he understands.

"You're welcome to try," he says, and Dean smiles at him, a smile that is only for him and not any ghosts that might linger in between. Castiel's silences are growing longer, the words in between shorter and more disjointed, as though Jimmy's newfound peace is a grave a restless ghost might find itself content to lie down in – both of them letting go at once, releasing the other. When Jimmy smiles back and feels the tremor running through the center of his chest, he knows it is his own and no one else's.

Dean's hand brushes against his, just an instant, before it raises to wave at Sam, coming out of the convenience store loaded with fuel for the trip ahead. Jimmy watches his silhouette against the glowing sky, and this isn't what he had been promised, this isn't what he had wanted, but now he has it and he can live with it, day to day and, he thinks as they pile into the car and Dean starts up the engine – he could even be happy with it.

One day he still might go home. But today he is here. And he is content.

* * *

><p><em>Jimmy Novak?<em>

Jimmy comes to a stop, his hand clenching on thin air. The haze in his mind recedes with reluctance, taking away New York and an anniversary and a sticky little girl marching in time with him. _Daddy, Daddy. _Ghosts in the air. "...Castiel?" he whispers the name, though there is no one around to hear.

_It is over; I am here to set you free._

"Set me...free..." The words have an alien shape on his tongue, as though they come from another language, another bizarre world altogether. For a moment he does not understand, and when he does, it is terrifying.

"You told me never to go out." Jimmy does not intend to shout, but he is, his voice climbing uncontrollably. He has the dim impression of faces turning and staring in his direction, but he ignores them. Let them; they aren't real anyway. Nothing in this make-believe world is real. But it is safe, it's always safe like paper planes and games of pretend. "It's _dangerous_ out there!"

His voice shakes, shatters on the last word. Castiel goes quiet with guilt, but not for long.

_It's safe now. Please, trust me. You will be safe now._

"No!" He looks wildly around. Two familiar, beloved figures break free from the fringes of the crowd pouring across the pedestrian crossing and head in his direction. They are smiling. Jimmy takes a step towards them, agonized, as though he has not already lost them twice over, third time's the charm and the breaking point. "You can't make me!"

_I kept my promise. _Castiel's voice is infinitely gentle, and infinitely cruel. _They are alive, well...and waiting for you._

Jimmy flinches. In the corners of his vision the throngs of people thin and gust out in a violent, lashing wind. The sunlight flows on, uninterrupted, down bare avenues and up the sides of buildings, their windows flashing silver like the glittering of many watching eyes. The deadly silence hangs over his head like a drawn sword.

"Castiel," he pleads, more afraid than he can say without choking on his bared heart. "Please, don't do this." His chest aches, tightening painfully around his lungs; he knows without looking that bruises are blooming over his ribs, dark blue and reddish in a violent smear of color. "_Please..."_

The dipping sun crooks and falls, shattering its pieces like mirror shards over Jimmy's feet. His own face looks back, reflected a thousand times over, its lines drawn with the same regret. _I'm sorry, _Castiel says in a thousand voices, and Jimmy slams his hands against his ears when the echoes ripple outward, pushing the city down around it into broken rubble. Tendrils of darkness curl through the cracks in the sky. _I'm sorry, Jimmy, I have no choice, I should have – _

The world ends. Jimmy dies.

In another world, he wakes again, screaming with the pain of the rebirth; rough hands push him down, but the first voice he hears through the din in his head is gentle, filled with fear and hope:

"Cass?"

"No," Jimmy Novak says. "It's me. It's only me."

_-end-_


End file.
